Hypothetical dark substellar objects floating freely in space
and not massive enough to sustain hydrogen fusion were first
considered in the scientific literature only five years after
the publication of Infra Draconis by
[1]} who named them black dwarfs. They
still burn Lithium, though, unlike planets – their even
lower mass “cousins”. The name was later replaced with
“brown dwarf”, as a truer description of their colors, as
suggested by Jill Tarter, better known for her SETI work. The
first BD was observed in 1988 – it is a companion to the
white dwarf GD165, but it was not recognized that it belongs
to the class for a decade [2]}. Modern
theoretical models suggest these objects span a range between
\(\sim \) 12 and \(\sim \) 60 M\(_{Jup}\) 
[3]}, [4]}.
